USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 72
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100
.
RHODE ISLAND HOSPITAL, PROVIDENCE
-
1035
MEDICINE AND SURGERY
health, but died suddenly at Havre, November 17, 1865. In his will Captain Ives had bequeathed $50,000 to the hospital. Other subscriptions were obtained, many from doctors or by doctors from their patients, the first annual report of the trustees showing subscriptions, including the $100,000 from the Ives family, amounting to $305,035. The city of Provi- dence gave additional land, including a lot on which stood one of the city pesthouses, some- times called the Marine Hospital, because most of the patients treated were sailors. A brick building was constructed, and opened October 1, 1868. The original board of trustees were : Robert H. Ives, President ; Amos D. Smith, Treasurer ; John T. Tobey, Secretary ; Amos N. Beckwith, Thomas Brown, Alexis Caswell, Thomas P. I. Goddard, Stephen Harris, Thomas P. Ives, Henry L. Crandall, Thomas P. Shepard, Amasa Sprague, and Samuel B. Tobey. The hospital had twenty-nine free beds when opened, besides accommodations for patients who paid, operating and instrument rooms, museum of anatomy, library, chapel, rooms for the superintendent, etc. Other land was purchased, the estate including sixteen acres. Addi- tional buildings were constructed, including an autopsy building, 1882; a gynecological cot- tage, 1885 ; a separate building for out-patients, 1891 ; a home and dormitory for nurses, 1893; a cottage for contagious diseases, 1896; a new pavilion, erected at a cost of $175,000 in 1900. The productive funds of the hospital amounted to $715,000 in 1900, the largest individual gifts up to that time being $100,000 from the estate of Thomas P. I. Goddard, and $67,000 from John Wilson Smith. Special departments of service were established as fol- lows : Eye and ear, 1868; gynecological, 1877; children's ward, 1882; ear, nose and throat, separate from eye, 1891 ; diseases of the skin, 1891; orthopedic surgery, 1895; neurology, 1896; cancer, 1900. Dr. John M. Peters, who became superintendent in 1889, continues in service in 1930. The increase in the work of Rhode Island Hospital in thirty years is indi- cated thus : Regular ward patients-247 in 1869, 2750 in 1899; out-patients-1709 in 1870, 6806 in 1899; expenses-$17,142 in 1869, $87,238 in 1899. The expenses invariably exceeded receipts, including income from endowment funds, the deficit being made up annually by sub- scription. Thus the hospital, though charging patients able to pay, maintained its service as a charitable institution for those who could not afford to pay.
Other hospitals established before 1900 are the Newport Hospital, Woonsocket Hospital, Providence Lying-in Hospital, and St. Joseph's Hospital, Providence. Newport Hospital was incorporated in 1872, and opened November 22, 1873. Four new wards were added in 1895- 1896-the Vanderbilt ward for men, the Ledyard ward for women and children, the Carey ward for paying patients, and the Vanderbilt surgical ward. Departments for treating eye and ear were established in 1896. Woonsocket Hospital was incorporated in 1873. The first gift was a bequest of $6000 by Dr. Ezekiel Fowler, who died in 1863. Other gifts were solicited, land was purchased, a building was erected, and the hospital was dedicated and opened in 1888. Providence Lying-in Hospital was incorporated in 1884, and opened in April, 1885, on Slocum Street in Providence. Removal to State and Field streets was made in 1887. The largest gifts were $11,000 by Joseph Banigan and $10,000 by Daniel W. Lyman. The Lying- in Hospital included in its service the training of nurses for maternity cases. St. Joseph's Hospital was founded by Catholic charity as a hospital for incurables in 1892.
RIVAL SCHOOLS OF MEDICINE-While several homeopathic physicians practiced in Rhode Island each for a short period preceding 1845, the first to settle permanently was Dr. A. H. Okie, 1842-1882. Five years later ten homeopathic physicians responded to a call for a meet- ing to organize a state society. The society was incorporated in June, 1850, and adopted a constitution proclaiming the principle propounded by Dr. Hahnemann, "Simila similibus curan- tur." The new practitioners encountered opposition from the Rhode Island Medical Society, most of whose members at the period were allopaths. The Rhode Island society had adopted
1036
RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY
years before a rule "to prevent, as far as may be, all unqualified persons from practicing medicine or surgery, and in order to discourage empiricism," which forbade members "to advise or consult directly or indirectly with any person whatever who shall hereafter com- mence the practice of medicine or surgery within this state until he shall have been examined and approbated." Dr. Worthington Hooker was awarded the Fiske prize in 1850 for his essay on "Medical Delusions," in which he criticised homeopathy with other practices classi- fied as "irregular." The Rhode Island Medical Society, in 1851, adopted resolutions declaring "that the society consider all those who advertise and practice homeopathy, as such, irregular practitioners." In 1856 the society received and accepted a report recommending that an application for membership be rejected "for the reason that the person recommending the applicant had abandoned the regular profession and adopted the homeopathic system, and that the applicant himself, from reliable information, is using homeopathic remedies; and we rec- ommend that all those members who profess and advocate homeopathy and stigmatize the regular profession, be not considered members in good standing and that they be deprived of all the privileges and benefits of this society." Careful reading of the resolutions and reports indicates that the opposition to homeopathy was not intolerant, so much as resentful of the attacks by zealous exponents of the Hahnemann system upon older practices. Dr. Charles W. Parsons, in 1882, summarized the controversy thus: "Two questions connected with conditions of membership have come up at different times to vex our souls. One was that of our fel- lows who practiced homeopathy, and the admission of new fellows more or less tinctured with that heresy. The general result of action has, I think, been this: Fellows who gave out that they had become homeopaths were gently and gradually dropped, without expulsion; the assumption of name was held a bar to admission, but our members were left free to administer any supposed remedies they may choose, if they find sufficient reason to think that they may be useful. What is regarded as a disqualification is not, I take it, the use of this or that drug, in large or small doses, but the assumption of a name which stands for an exclusive dogma, a revolt against the experience of the profession, and a claim to new and reformed principles of treatment. We disavow equally the nickname 'allopathist' applied to ourselves, and the pre- tensions of homeopathy to represent a new departure in therapeutics."*
As a matter of fact, the medical profession is more responsive to change in methods because of new discoveries than most others. A lawyer may cite with authority the decision of a judge rendered three or four centuries ago for the purpose of illuminating a text or interpreting a principle ; whereas the physician seeks constantly the very latest pronouncement in medicine or surgery which has the earmarks of respectability as based on sound practice or science. The Rhode Island Medical Society donated its old library to Rhode Island Hospital because many of the books "through the advancement of medical education, had become sub- stantially useless in the society," except for historical study. The physician's hesitancy to adopt new systems, subject to criticism as empirical, rests upon a conservative attitude befit- ting a profession called upon frequently to make decisions that involve life or death, health or disease, successful cure or failure.
Providence Homeopathic Dispensary was organized in 1850, and in 1878 a charter for a homoeopathic hospital was obtained. Four years later an estate on Morris Avenue, in Prov- idence, was purchased and the Homeopathic Hospital was opened. Surgical and contagious disease wards were added. The hospital was continued until 1900, when it was closed because of financial failure. Another homeopathic hospital was established later.
PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE-The recognition of public health problems in Rhode Island has been related to the growth and segregation of population, and the development of commerce
*Compare the quotation from an address by Dr. Drowne, supra.
1037
MEDICINE AND SURGERY
and manufacturing. Sanitation continues to be essentially a private problem while the vast majority of the people live on farms, and sources of water supply and provisions for the dis- position of waste are related to family. When, however, commerce develops, and the ports of a community are visited by ships, particularly from tropical countries, the danger from strange diseases afflicting sailors and the carrying of disease by maritime rodents raise new problems. The United States Marine hospital service in the Treasury Department was organ- ized to combat diseases among sailors ; out of it developed the extensive federal provisions for safeguarding health, and the significant studies that evolved methods for combatting fevers. Congestion of population raises problems of protecting water supply from pollution, and of disposing of waste and drainage. The history of large cities in bygone centuries is replete with tales of revolting insanitary conditions which favored, if they did not cause, epi- demics, and of frightful losses of population by plague and pestilence. In Rhode Island pre- ventive measures until the middle of the nineteenth century were limited to quarantine, isola- tion hospitals or pesthouses, inoculation and vaccination against smallpox. Besides these, there was occasionally an insistence upon the suppression of insanitary nuisances and the building of drains to make the disposition of waste and effluvium less offensive.
Providence, in 1856, following an epidemic of cholera, established a city department of health, with Dr. E. M. Snow as superintendent; Dr. Snow continued in office twenty-eight years to 1884, when he was succeeded by Dr. Charles V. Chapin, who in 1930 had been in continuous service fifty-six years. The duties of the superintendent of health included regis- tration of births, deaths and marriages, the investigation and suppression of insanitary nui- sances, and precautionary measures for the protection of health; the service extended rapidly as zealous health officers found new ways of applying science to safeguarding health and life. In Providence investigation of water supply led to the establishment of a public water sys- tem, and studies of drainage to an elaborate sewer system, connection with which for the dis- position of drainage was enforced. The modern city, in its cleanliness in spite of a popula- tion of 260,000, is in marked contrast with the city earlier than 1850, when insanitary condi- tions favored epidemics. Other towns and cities followed the example of Providence, and in 1885, the appointment of health officers became mandatory by statute. In all towns, unless other provisions is made for a board of health, the town council is a board of health.
A State Board of Health was established in 1877, consisting of one member from each county except Providence and two members from Providence County. In the board as first established were four physicians and two lawyers. The secretary of the board was its execu- tive agent. Dr. Charles H. Fisher was secretary from 1877 to 1893, and Dr. Gardiner T. Swarts from 1893 to 1916. The new board took over the registration of vital statistics for the state, and in its earlier years undertook the collection of information about sanitary con- ditions throughout the state and the publication of sanitary studies. Its functions were hor- tative rather than mandatory, and its powers were suggestive rather than effective; an inno- vation in Rhode Island polity, it must develop, as have other state agencies, largely through the extension of confidence in the merit and value of its service. The importance of the early work of the board is indicated by the nature of some of the significant health studies under- taken and reported, thus: Diseases among domestic animals, 1880, and in 1888, tuberculosis among cows, which led, in 1891, to measures for suppressing tuberculosis under the direction of the State Board of Agriculture; composition and properties of milk, 1882, a thorough treat- ment by the milk inspector in Providence, Edwin E. Calder, who was one of the state's great- est chemists ; inspection of sanitation in summer resorts, 1882, plans for sewage drainage and disposal, 1884, and an investigation of the pollution of rivers, 1887; investigation of water- sheds and water supply in connection with the development of public water systems, 1894. With the advance of bacteriological science the State Board of Health extended its initial
1038
RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY
examinations of sputum for tuberculosis and throat secretions for diphtheria, to elaborate provision for examinations of cultures, and the provision of vaccines and antitoxins. Out of the investigation of sources of water supply developed a department for the analysis of drinking water. In 1895, the Board of Health was made an examining and licensing board for doctors, and at once undertook the work of examining all resident physicians, and there- after all applicants for admission to practice medicine. The secretary of the board, under the examining law, was ordered to prosecute persons practicing or offering to practice medicine or surgery without license.
IMPROVEMENT OF PRACTICE-The Revolutionary War terminated the migration of doc- tors which had brought to Rhode Island in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries practi- tioners who had been educated in famous schools and hospitals in Europe, including physicians of foreign birth who settled in Rhode Island and Rhode Island doctors who studied abroad, as did Dr. Sylvester Gardiner. The second half of the eighteenth century had witnessed the establishment of four American medical schools, Brown University providing the fifth for Rhode Island in 1810. The apparently limited time given to medicine in the course at Brown University leading to the degree of doctor of medicine deceives unless with it is considered the fact that the medical students gained a practical introduction to the duties of the physician and surgeon by serving an apprenticeship with a doctor. The last explains the commentary, in the instance of most Rhode Island doctors, that he studied with doctor B, besides taking his degree in medicine. The apprenticeship replaced the hospital visitation which was common in Europe preceding a lecture by a professor-doctor. America produced able doctors of the type of Dr. Levi Wheaton and Dr. Usher Parsons, who were schooled by experience supple- mentary to formal study and instruction. Occasionally a Rhode Islander went abroad to study, as did the distinguished Dr. Solomon Drowne, to supplement his course in medicine at Pennsylvania, and the famous Dr. Elisha Bartlett, who was graduated as a doctor of medicine from Brown University in 1826. Dr. Bartlett spent most of a year in Paris, attending public lectures on medicine and surgery, studying with the most famous doctors and surgeons of the period, and visiting hospitals. After abundant experience in practice, he wrote a treatise on "Fevers," which was printed in four editions, in 1842, 1847, 1852, and 1857, the last edition two years after his death, which occurred in 1855. Dr. Bartlett taught pathological anatomy and materia medica at Berkshire Medical Institute, theory and practice of medicine at Tran- sylvania University, and, as professor of materia medica and medical jurisprudence, became one of the most brilliant of the galaxy comprising the faculty at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. Medical science and practice were progressive in America under the leadership of great doctors like Elisha Bartlett.
There were others, not so brilliant in achievement, perhaps, who were alleviating, reliev- ing or curing disease by methods accepted as meeting the standards most approved at the time, physicians and surgeons whose rewards were not acclaim so much as the smile of a fellow creature which indicated relief from discomfort, a stronger pulse and surer respiration. Approbation by members of the medical profession was indicated with reference to the forty- nine physicians and surgeons who were incorporated as the Rhode Island Medical Society in 1812, and fifteen others who were admitted as additional Fellows of the society in the first year. After 1812, doctors "found skilled in their profession and fitted for the practice of it" displayed a "testimonial under the seal" of the society in much the same way that the twen- tieth century doctor hangs in his office his license to practice and his medical diploma. There was not, however, until 1895 a public agency with authority to examine and license doctors and to exclude from the practice of medicine persons not adequately trained. While the classification of doctors as "regular" or "irregular" was applied sometimes to indicate a dis-
1039
MEDICINE AND SURGERY
tinction betwixt the established, conventional school of allopathy and alleged new systems, it was applicable also to a distinction betwixt trained physicians and surgeons and persons not properly trained. There were some who assumed the title of "doctor" without adequate preparation, and who "practiced medicine" with little respect for professional or other ethics.
When the State Board of Health was authorized to license doctors and directed to prose- cute persons who practiced medicine without license, it faced the problem of passing upon the qualifications of nearly 500 "doctors," and litigation to obtain judicial determination of eligi- bility in the instances of persons who were refused licenses .* The board's experience par- alleled that of the Board of Registration in Dentistry, which was established earlier .; With its first year's work complete, the State Board of Health proceeded to prosecute "irregular" or unlicensed practitioners .¿ Christian Science was held not to be unlawful practice of med- icine, when a person using the title "doctor" offered prayers for the recovery of another per- son from disease .** An indictment charging an osteopath with practicing medicine was sus- tained as valid in spite of technical objections to the form of complaint and to the sufficiency of the indictment. ti
The practice of osteopathy, defined as treatment by manipulation for diseased or abnor- mal conditions of the body, was legalized by statute in 1914, and provision was made for a board of examiners of osteopaths to be appointed by the State Board of Health. The Supreme Court, in an advisory opinion, held that a licensed osteopath may sign a valid certificate of death.## The court said: "It cannot be doubted that the practice of osteopathy as author- ized" by statute "is the practice of medicine. . . . The statute authorizes the licensed prac- titioner of osteopathy to make a diagnosis of diseased or abnormal conditions of the human body and to apply a remedy therefor. This power of diagnosis is not restricted; having determined, however, the nature and the cause of the sickness, the practitioner is then restricted to the remedy for the ailment which must be confined to manipulation of the body; the method and the extent of the manipulation is left to the judgment of the practitioner. . . . Is a registered practitioner of osteopathy a physician registered to practice in this state within the fair meaning of these words in this section? We think that he is. . . . . We think that the word physician . ... should properly be construed in its broader meaning to include osteopaths, and that as used in this part of the statute it is not to be confined to its limited meaning of doctor of medicine. . . . Osteopaths have no authority to give prescriptions or to prescribe drugs. . . . . We think that the conclusion we have reached is strengthened by a consideration of the result if the other construction were adopted. In that case we would have this situation : The state by its examination and certificate has certified to the ability of the osteopath to discover the cause of the disease while the patient is alive; but upon the death of the patient, the osteopath then is to be held to be incompetent and unauthorized to state the cause of death. Such a construction is illogical .
The Supreme Court held that chiropractic service fell within the practice of medicine, defined as the "art of preventing, curing or alleviating disease,"§ and required a license. The legal status of chiropractic was established subsequently by statute. Holding that the law was intended to "protect against pretence and sham as well as ignorance," the Supreme Court excluded an offer to defend on the ground that a prescribed "remedy" was "harmless," and thus aided the State Board of Health to suppress a Rhode Island "irregular" who claimed
*Evans vs. State Board of Health, 19 R. I. 312 ; Paquin vs. State Board of Health, 19 R. I. 365; Boucher vs. State Board of Health, 19 R. I. 366. Battles vs. Board of Registration in Dentistry, 16 R. I. 372 ; Kenney vs. State Board of Dentistry, 26 R. I. 538.
#State vs. Perlot, 20 R. I. 273; State vs. Heffernan, 28 R. I. 20.
** State vs. Mylod, 20 R. I. 632.
ffState vs. Flanagan, 25 R. I. 369.
##Opinion to the Governor, 42 R. I. 249. §Swarts vs. Siveny, 35 R. I. 1.
1040
RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY
that he had discovered "a new principle of health and healing." *; In consequence of statute and litigation new practices resting upon novel principles or treatments seek recognition through legislation, as in the instances of osteopathy and chiropractic. Other services for which examination and licenses are prescribed include dentistry, optometry, chiropody, mid- wifery and trained nursing. A licensed physician and surgeon, however, within the scope of his general authority to practice healing, curative and alleviating arts may use any reasonable method of treatment, including specialized treatments defined by statute,*# and entirely new and original treatments. This liberal interpretation favors the progressive development of medical science and the introduction of approved methods of treating disease and preventing it as discovered and approved in successful experience, and at the same time tends somewhat to safeguard the suffering thousands afflicted with disease against exploitation and against ill- founded diagnosis and practices which are not approved by reputable physicians.
STATE REGULATION-The State Board of Health continued in the twentieth century as a public agency for investigating "the causes of disease, the prevalence of epidemics and endemics among the people, the sources of mortality, the effects of localities, employment and other condi- tions and circumstances on the public health," and for the publishing and circulating of "such information as it may deem to be important and useful for diffusion among the people of the state." The board promoted legislation for the suppression of nuisances, for the protection of drinking water from pollution, for the elimination of such prolific agencies for the communica- tion of diseases as the common towel and common drinking cup, for the inhibition of spitting in public conveyances and on sidewalks; and it disseminated information about the causes and methods of infection. It established and maintained pathological, bacteriological and chemical laboratories. In the field of preventive medicine it manufactured and distributed vaccines, as well as examined sputum and other cultures. It established and maintained a division of child welfare. Its principal employes were a secretary, who served as executive agent for the board; a pathologist and bacteriologist, and a chemical and sanitary engineer. In extension of its function as an examining and certificating agency for regulating the practice of med- icine and other healing arts, it appointed boards of examiners in (1) chiropody, (2) oste- opathy, (3) midwifery, (4) hairdessing and cosmetic therapy, and (5) chiropractic. For further protection of the public health other independent boards were created as follows: State Board of Pharmacy, Board of Registration in Dentistry, Narcotic Drug Board, Board of Examiners of Trained Nurses, Board of Purification of Waters, Inspector of Meat, Board of Examiners of Barbers, State Athletic Commission, Board of Trustees for the State Sanator- ium, Board of Food and Drug Commissioners, State Board of Registration in Embalming, Board of Examiners in Optometry, State Board of Veterinarians. The Factory Inspector visits and approves places where foods are manufactured and sold, including bakeries and restaurants.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.